Name: Masters and Servants
Brand: University of Alberta Press (CA)
SKU: 9781772123371
Price: 38.99 GBP
Availability: InStock

Masters and Servants

The Hudson's Bay Company and Its North American Workforce, 1668-1786

By (author): Scott P. Stephen

Published by University of Alberta Press (CA)

In Stock

£38.99

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
ISBN: 9781772123371
Publication Date: 13-Dec-2019

Subjects:
Colonialism & imperialism

Quantity

In Masters and Servants, Scott P. Stephen reveals startling truths about Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) workers. Rather than dedicating themselves body and soul to the Company's interests, these men were hired like domestic servants, joining a "household" with its attendant norms of duty and loyalty. The household system produced a remarkably stable political-economic entity, connecting early North American resource extraction to larger trends in British imperialism. Through painstaking research, Stephen shines welcome light on the lives of these largely overlooked individuals. An essential book for labour historians, Masters and Servants will appeal to scholars of early modern Britain, the North American fur trade, Western social history, business history, and anyone intrigued by the reach of the HBC.

Scott P. Stephen is a historian with Parks Canada, specializing in the fur trade and early settlement eras in western Canada.

"Blacksmiths, bookkeepers, loggers, tanners, coopers, cooks, sail-makers, interpreters, surveyors, clergy, the list goes on as Stephen marches us through the lives of the early Hudson's Bay worker. Some were unscrupulous fortune hunters. Some chose to abandon families in England and travel thousands of miles to seek their livelihood in furs.... We also read stories of belligerence, arson, thievery, and murder.... Everything is thoroughly documented using the Company's voluminous archive." [Full review at https://ormsbyreview.com/2020/10/06/937-verzuh-stephen-hbc-workforce/] -- Ron Verzuh -- The Ormsby Review, 20201006

"[Masters and Servants] is an important and valuable contribution. Stephen has opened a new window into early HBC history, while revealing some of the good, some of the bad, and some of the ugly of a legendary institution." [Full article at https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2020/04/the-human-factor/] -- Michael Taube, Literary Review of Canada, April 2020